Notices by FozzTexx (fozztexx@mastodon.fozztexx.com)

Those of you that used to use your computer hooked up to your living room TV, what did you keep the computer on? The floor? A TV tray? Coffee table? A rolling cart? A bizarre table/shelf that must have been made from the walls of your great-great-grandma's house? Maybe the TV was on a cart so you could move the TV to watch instead of moving the computer?

#RetroComputing #VintageComputing

Making vinyl stickers as one does when they’re hoping to bribe someone. What will it be? #maker

Second color #maker

Doing multiple colors is always a challenge. Luckily I have a light table that came from my grandma. #maker

Every single one of these little pieces wants to go with the backing instead of stick to the transfer tape. #maker

Getting the backing to come off and not pull the pieces with it is always the hardest part. #maker

@thomasfuchs could be…

@nocontexttrek @rasterweb Last episode of TAS that I watched had a character who had "used his vast personal fortune" to do great good. I kept yelling at the TV “fortuine? There's no money!”

New #Insentricity post: Getting #Linux to boot on a Toshiba T5200, a 386 luggable with only 4MB of RAM. Linux doesn’t love being this RAM-starved, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be done. The biggest challenge? Compatibility: LOADLIN’s supposed bzImage support and getting Linux to work with my impossibly large (for the period) hard drive.

#RetroComputing #VintageComputing

Checked out #Linux kernel v3.7.10 to see if I can strip it down enough to run on the 386 with 4MB of RAM in the Toshiba T5200. My plan is to do something very similar to what I did in my blog post where I targeted a 486 (https://www.insentricity.com/a.cl/283), but this time use LOADLIN.EXE to load the kernel from DOS since I don't have a working floppy drive.

#RetroComputing #VintageComputing.

Setup a Debian 7 Wheezy docker environment to build in. But already running into compile problems which seem to be caused by lack of 386 support:

In file included from include/linux/irq_work.h:4:0,
from arch/x86/kernel/irq_work.c:8:
include/linux/llist.h: In function 'llist_add':
include/linux/llist.h:160:11: error: 'boot_cpu_data' undeclared (first use in this function)

#Linux #RetroComputing #VintageComputing

No `make tinyconfig` on v3.7.10. That's going to make stripping it down a lot more work. #Linux #RetroComputing #VintageComputing

I’m not sure that’s better. No error messages at all. #Linux #RetroComputing #VintageComputing

Hey, an error message is progress, right? #Linux #RetroComputing #VintageComputing

Looks like v3.3.8 was the last version that could be built for 386. After that there's some change that prevents the kernel from compiling. #Linux #RetroComputing #VintageComputing

If I change the BIOS Memory config so that everything above 640k is Extended instead of some being Expanded then my custom kernel doesn't immediately reboot. Instead it just hangs with a cursor on the screen and doesn't print anything. Getting annoyed with the lack of a reset button on the T5200 too.

Would be nice if there was a way I could get qemu to act exactly like the T5200 so I don't have to keep testing on the real hardware.

#Linux #RetroComputing #VintageComputing

Still can’t get my kernel to boot. Went and got the Slackware 1 kernel and used LOADLIN and that’s at least something! Maybe I should try to fix the floppy drive so I can do a traditional Linux install? #Linux #RetroComputing #VintageComputing

Newest kernel I can get to boot so far is 2.0.18 from Debian 1.1 from here: https://grumbeer.dyndns.org/ftp/linux/dist/debian/1.1.11/buzz/disks-i386/SpecialKernels/

It will boot using the boot floppy, but if I extract the kernel from the floppy it will NOT boot with LOADLIN and instead the computer reboots.

Also not sure where to get the kernel config that was used for that v2.0.18 kernel. Or where to get the v2.0.18 linux kernel source either, git repo only goes back to v2.6.

#Linux #RetroComputing #VintageComputing

Thanks to @nina_kali_nina I've switched to using PCem instead of qemu since it does a better job replicating the experience I get on the T5200. I've been going through old and older distros trying to find one that has a kernel that boots on the emulated 386DX. So far it seems that no distro with a 2.x kernel will work. Newest so far is Slackware 2.3 with a 1.2.8 kernel. Bumping the RAM up to 32MB doesn't get 2.x kernels working either. Very strange.

#Linux #RetroComputing #VintageComputing

For anyone who wants to play along, I've put the docker environment and my current Linux config here: https://github.com/FozzTexx/old-wheezer

I'll try to keep it updated as I progress.

#Linux #RetroComputing #VintageComputing